Ham Shack Phase II – grid power
Event occurred Apr 21, 2017
After literally pulling everything that was not Ham related out of the back bedroom Heidi and I call our “Ham Shack”, I then pulled out everything except the furniture that would remain in the room – only then did I start rebuilding the shack over a period of “several” days.
This photo is actually from a couple days prior to the 21st.
I hadn’t seen that corner of the room in several years. Immediately started contemplating having that corner as the new “home” for our very large deep cycle SLA batteries that will provide backup power to the Ham Shack and a general DC charging station. Needed to replace that old, junk desk end table with a sturdy oak table we have out in the “Cool room”.
Testing a new Belkin power station that will be wall mounted.
Another Belkin unit, this one mounted directly over an existing electrical outlet that is on a different circuit. The only thing plugged in at that moment was the add-on monitor for the computer. Bottom line, it works! This will certainly handle the telephone, computer, accessories, etc.
After a couple of abortive attempts to mount the bigger Belkin surge protected “power strip” to the side of that melamine riser, decided to go the easy way and wall mount it. Again, ready access to the “off” switch is the prime consideration on location. Used our Dremel tool to widen the holes in the back to accept the size of screw-heads I wanted for *firmly* mounting it.
That is probably going to do it for phase II – my next step will be to set up a bunch of ground straps, (tinned copper mesh), one end will be attached to that (shined) copper pipe with hose clamps, and the other to the individual cases of each piece of equipment. All ground straps will be the same length, and long enough that we can completely pull the device from its “pigeon hole” for inspection/addition/repair. That is going to have to wait for another day – but Phase II is complete!
OK, after dinner – decided to go ahead and fabricate 8 ground straps. Each is 45″ long, made from 3/4″ wide, tinned, copper mesh. The white gorilla tape is merely to prevent fraying before use and will be removed.